Injustice

How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department

By: Carol Leonnig, Aaron C. Davis

Narrated by: January LaVoy, Carol Leonnig, Aaron C. Davis

An Instant New York Times Bestseller

“An amazing piece of work . . . This is not just a series of newly reported anecdotes and pieces of information. It is a remarkable thesis about how Trump effectively broke the Justice Department in his first term by bullying it.” —Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show

From Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis, a shocking investigation of unparalleled depth into the subversion of the Justice Department over the last decade, culminating in President Donald Trump upending this cornerstone of democracy and threatening America’s rule of law as we have long known it

Throughout his first administration, Trump did more than any other president to politicize the nation’s top law enforcement agency, pressuring appointees to shield him, to target his enemies, and even to help him cling to power after his 2020 election defeat. The department, pressed into a defensive crouch, has never fully recovered.

Injustice exposes not only the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the department at every turn but also how delays in investigating Trump’s effort to overturn the will of voters under Attorney General Merrick Garland helped prevent the country from holding Trump accountable and enabled his return to power. With never-before-told accounts, Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis take readers inside as prosecutors convulsed over Trump’s disdain for the rule of law, and FBI agents, the department’s storied investigators, at times retreated in fear. They take you to the rooms where Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team set off on an all-but-impossible race to investigate Trump for absconding with classified documents and waging an assault on democracy—and inside his prosecution’s heroic and fateful choices that ultimately backfired.

With a plethora of sources deeply embedded in the ranks of three presidencies, Leonnig and Davis reveal the daily war secretly waged for the soul of the department, how it has been shredded by propaganda and partisanship, and how—if the United States hopes to live on with its same form of government—Trump’s war with the Justice Department will mark a turning point from which it will be hard to recover. Injustice is the jaw-dropping account of partisans and enablers undoing democracy, heroes still battling to preserve a nation governed by laws, and a call to action for those who believe in liberty and justice for all.

Critic reviews

"Most legal stories rely on the inherent drama of trials, but in Injustice Leonnig and Davis take on the more challenging assignment of depicting a bureaucracy. Zoom meetings, as a rule, are less riveting than cross-examinations, but their upshots, especially here, can be more consequential. The heart of Injustice is the authors’ reconstruction of how Garland led the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attempt to overturn the 2020 election . . . If Injustice has heroes, it’s the investigators from the House Select Committee on the events of Jan. 6, who did what Garland forbade his subordinates to do: examine the role of Trump and his White House in the attack on the Capitol . . . The disturbing takeaway of Injustice is that, at the Justice Department, political independence has been replaced by abject servility to Trump." —Jeffrey Toobin, The New York Times Book Review

"The most detailed account yet of the Justice Department’s disastrous effort to bring Donald Trump to trial during Joe Biden’s administration, which is likely to long rank among U.S. law enforcement’s greatest failures. History will not judge this effort kindly, but perhaps more importantly — at this fractious and precarious moment in American politics — [Injustice] contains critical lessons for a future administration that wants to focus on serious legal accountability for powerful political figures . . . If Democrats are to avoid making the same mistakes all over again, Leonnig and Davis’ book offers both an engaging and enraging opportunity to learn. It’s a journalistic tour-de-force." —Politico

the scope and detail of the authors ' account of Trump's destruction of the Justice Department.

I liked the detail . I learned terrifying things I didn't know. It flows like a thriller. I listened to the book -- notes and an index are probably included with the book and Kindle and would have been helpful.

In depth research

The authors exhibit great journalism in their in-depth research, analysis, and reporting. Although I followed all of this in the news, I learned much more that wasn’t readily available at the time.
An important read for all voters.

The Truth

while this book should open the eyes of Trumpers, it probably will not. Leonnig is such a superb writer that when you finish the book, you know for a fact that every word is the truth and an alarming reminder of the evil within Trump.

Most important book of the year!

Facts matter. The dissolution of democracy matters. impartial law and order matter. What are we as citizens of the United States going to do about our authoritarian government? This book, carefully researched, presents alarming facts about our nation that need to be shouted from the rooftops!

Chilling

A small amount of learning to read to an audience but quickly caught on. This is a chilling true story about the destruction of the DOJ.